He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up in the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me and I in him. As the living Father has sent Me and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me , he also shall alive because of Me. [John 6:54-57]

I am the vine; you are the branches. He who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit; for apart from Me you can do nothing. If one does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is dried up; and they gather them and cast them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you. In this is My Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and so you will become My disciples. [John 15:5-8]

Taste and see that the Lord is good; [Psalms 34:8]

It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. [John 6:63]

But He answered and said, It is written, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out through the mouth of God.” [Matthew 4:4]

Dear saints, I want to emphasize how important eating and drinking is. If we don’t eat and drink, we will grow weak and die. If someone eats once a day, surely he won’t have enough strength. Such a person will be weak and sickly.

Many want to abide in the Lord and bear fruit for the Lord. But few care for eating and drinking the Lord. We need to be the ones who eat and drink Christ many times each day. If we are always eating a drinking Christ, we will live because of Him; we will abide in Him and He will abide in us; and we will bear much fruit.

In order to eat something, that thing must die to enter into us. Then that food is metabolized. Our body is filled and saturated by the food we eat. We even become what we eat, because our body becomes saturated with it’s nutrients. If you just eat fish every day, you will smell like fish. Everyone will know you eat fish, because you will have a fishy aroma.

So it is with Christ. But, how do we eat Christ? Eating Christ is related to the Spirit and to the Word. The Word is the Food itself and the Spirit is the Life. No one goes to the store and says, “I don’t want the vegetable, I just want the life in it”. The Word is for us to take in the Life.

Yet, there is the danger that the Word could just be dead letters to us. If we just take it in with our mind, then there’s no spiritual Food. The only way to eat spiritual Food is with our spirits. We must turn our mind, will, and emotions to the Spirit, who is mingled with our spirits, for the proper eating.

This was shown clearly in Jesus words to the Pharisees:

You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that testify concerning Me. Yet you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life. [John 5:39-40]

We shouldn’t forget that Christ is the Life within the Word. Actually, Christ is both the Word and the Life. The Word is Christ spoken forth for the transmission of Christ as Life.

Don’t think that this Food is just the Scriptures. We must also speak forth Christ to one another. We must feed each other with our experience of Christ. Ministering Christ to one another is the shepherding way.

He said to him, Feed My lambs…He said to him, Shepherd My sheep…Jesus said to him, Feed My sheep. [John 21:15-17]

And He Himself gave some as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some as shepherds and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints unto the work of the ministry, unto the building up of the Body of Christ, [Ephesians 4:11-12]

Notice here that Paul says, “some as apostles”, “some as prophets”, and “some as evangelists”. But, shepherds and teachers are linked together. There is a link between shepherding, feeding, and teaching. If we are to take the shepherding way, we must be ones who are able to feed the lambs and the sheep, by teaching the Word, both as Milk and as Meat, according to their need.

Our Lord is the Good Shepherd, who nourishes and cherishes us. Our shepherding, must be the expression of our Lord.

The matter of eating Christ is absolutely central to the Scriptures and vital to our organic Life in Christ. The Scriptures begin with eating and ends with eating and drinking. Christ is the Tree of Life for God’s growth and the River of Life for God’s flow.

It would be good if every time you ate and drank, you would remember Christ as your real Food and Drink

That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man, [Ephesians 3:16]

I hope you all will take this to heart, eating and drinking Christ, and nourishing and cherishing one another. Then you all will be strengthened into your inner Man.

1 God gave His Son to man to be The tree of life so rich and free, That every man may taste and see That God is good for food. Yes, God is good for food! Yes, God is good for food! We’ve tasted and we testify That God is good for food!

2 We eat this feast and take God in, And as we eat we live by Him, For all the elements within This feast are God Himself. Yes, Jesus is our feast! Yes, Jesus is our feast! We eat this feast and live by Him, For Jesus is our feast!

3 Christ Jesus is the food we eat; He is our bread, He is our meat; He is our life-supply complete; We daily eat of Him. We daily eat of Him, We daily eat of Him. He is our life-supply complete; We daily eat of Him.

4 This feast is so enjoyable; To men it’s so available, For God said whosoever will May come and freely eat. Yes, come and freely eat; Yes, come and freely eat. For God said whosoever will May come and freely eat.

And not holding the Head, out from whom all the Body, being richly supplied and knit together by means of the joints and sinews, grows with the growth of God.

God’s Eternal Purpose is to head up all things in Christ and He is accomplishing His Purpose through His Economy, which is to dispense Himself into all the saints to be our Life and Life-Supply.

God’s Economy is what we see in Matthew 13. The Lord is dispensing Himself as the Seed into our hearts. He is uniting Himself with us in eternal Oneness.

In Matthew 13, the Lord gives a picture of the growth in Life concerning four heart conditions. These heart conditions are symbolized by the soils.

We see a few pictures in this parable: the Sower, the Seed(the Word), and the Life.

The Lord is the Sower.

The Lord is the Seed.

The Lord is the Word.

The Lord is the Life.

The Lord is everything for us. When we believe into the Lord, He comes into us as a small Seed. But, this Seed isn’t lacking anything. Within the Seed is the entire Tree. This Seed becomes One with the soil of our hearts. The Lord Spirit is mingled with our spirit in Oneness.

With the proper soil, water, and light this Seed will grow up to be the overcoming inner Man in us. You must understand that what grows forth from the Seed planted into our hearts is not just God, but also Man. The Plant that grows is God with us. It is God and us as One New Man. This Seed is planted in our spirit and will grow to fill and saturate our mind, will, and emotions.

I do think that we all have the experience of each of the different types of soils in Jesus’ parable. I encourage you to go read that parable now.

The Hard Soil

A hard heart is of no use to God. It gives Him no room to enter or grow.

The Rocky Soil

The rocky heart is somewhat hard and somewhat soft. It gives the Lord room to enter and grow, but the growth is too shallow.

The Thorny Soil

The thorny heart is a soft heart, but the thorns take away the nutrients for its growth.

The good soil

The good heart is gives the Lord plenty of room to growth. It receives His Living Water and His Shining Light. Root dig deeply down to strengthen the inner man. The Plant grows upward growing from glory to glory, until the ultimate expression is revealed: the glorious flower. Right now you may not look so beautiful outwardly, but if you have the proper heart for the Lord, someday you will be a glorious shining flower, displaying the beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ. We will express the fullness of God!

The proper heart for the flow of Life.

The Tree of Life grows in the River of Life. The Tree of Life is for growth of God’s Life and the River of Life is for the flow of God’s Life.

In Genesis 26, we have a picture of Isaac with his tent in Beersheba, where Abraham had planted a tamarisk tree. The Lord appears to Isaac and Isaac builds an altar and digs a well. We need to set our tents(our dwelling) in the Lord’s constant appearing by the tamarisk tree(a picture of the Tree of Life), building an altar and digging a well. The altar symbolizes the application of the cross and the well symbolizes our enjoyment of the flowing resurrection Life.

None of us have the proper heart by nature. So for God’s flow, we need to learn to be altar-builders and well-diggers.

Hidden deep beneath layers and layers of hardened dust, there is fresh Water. Every morning we must wake up and dig through our natural man to enjoy the flowing Life deep within our spirit. I just wake up in my flesh every morning. I don’t want to turn to the Lord. I don’t want to get up. I don’t want to work.

I do think that many of you have the same experience. So we must build an altar, leaving our old man there. And we must dig a well to keep our hearts soft and tender for the Lord’s flow. With such a soft heart, the Lord will be a fountain springing up within us to eternal Life. We will have the freshness of His flowing Life. He will even overflow out of us and water those around us.

But whenever their heart turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. And the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. But we all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit.

Keep turning your hearts to the Lord by Faith, dear ones. With a pure heart, a heart that’s single for the Lord, you are free to behold the Lord within you. The more time you spend beholding the Lord within you, the more you will shine. You will be transformed into the Lord’s image, expressing His glory more and more. How gloriously blessed are the pure in heart!

Share this:

Like this:

Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Philippians 3:12 NASB

There are many aspects to and pictures of the Prize, the consummation of which is the New Jerusalem. But I want to focus on the Good Land.

Beginning with Abraham, God called out a People to take possession of the Good Land. The Good Land is a type of Christ as Everything for us. The Good Land is the All-Inclusive Christ.

Today, this Good Land is in our spirit.

Joshua the son of Nun, who stands before you, he shall enter. Encourage him, for he shall cause Israel to inherit it. And as for your little ones, who you said would become a prey, and your children, who today have no knowledge of good or evil, they shall go in there. And to them I will give it, and they shall possess it. But as for you, turn, and journey into the wilderness in the direction of the Red Sea.’ Deuteronomy 1:38-40 ESV

The first generation in the wilderness is a picture of the old man, who couldn’t overcome the flesh and experience all that Christ is for us. But second generation is a picture of the New Man. It’s the New Man, having no knowledge of good or evil, who can take possession of the Good Land.

Adam, the first Man, ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. But in Christ, the second Man, Adam has been terminated. All that is of Adam has died in the wilderness.

So the Israelites pass through the Jordan, a figure of our baptism, death, and resurrection in Christ. It’s the Ark, a type of Christ, that leads the Way. Then the Israelites are commanded to circumcise themselves.

We are the real Hebrews, which means river-crossers. We are the ones circumcised in our hearts.

“When the Lord your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, Deuteronomy 12:29 ESV

Not only were the Israelites to cut off their flesh in circumcision, but they were to cut off the people in the Good Land. All of the Canaanites are a type of the flesh and the kings are a type of the evil powers that govern our flesh.

Even though, objectively, we have been crucified with Christ, we must apply His finished work by the Spirit, who is the very effectiveness of His death and resurrection. This is the picture that we have of the circumcision and the cutting off of the people’s from the Good Land.

If we are to take full possession of the Good Land, we must have practical daily experience of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ by the Spirit.

In Joshua, we have some pictures to give us practical help in overcoming and taking Christ as Everything for us.

By Faith.

Jericho, with its high walls, is a great big picture of the flesh. The Israelites didn’t need to struggle against Jericho. They walked around it by Faith. They walked with the Ark, as a type of Christ. They blew the Ram’s Horn, a type of announcing the Gospel of Christ as the fighting power. See Overcoming Jericho.

Being right before the Lord.

After Jericho, the Israelites attacked Ai. They spied out Ai and saw that the enemies were few there, and didn’t even send all the people to fight. But, they didn’t contact God and they kept something from Jericho against God’s command. So, Israel was defeated because it wasn’t right with God.

We don’t need more introspection, but we do need to go before the Lord and allow Him to illuminate our being. We are His House and He desires to keep His House clean. Don’t take a flashlight(introspection) to look for dirt, but turn to the light switch(the Spirit) to shine. He will show you everywhere that you are not right before the Lord. Wait on Him. Don’t rush ahead. Stay in the shining of the Lord. This Life within us is the Light of men. We are men, so His Life is our Light to shine in us. Stay in the cleansing flow of His River of Life. We walk in this world it’s too easy to get dirty. Our feet are always in contact with the world. This is the reason that Jesus washed the disciples’ feet. He is the Spirit washing our dirty feet in an inward way today.

Not being deceived by the flesh.

Next is the picture of the Gibeonites. Unlike Ai, the Gibeonites did not come to fight against Israel, but came to deceive it. The Gibeonites pretended to be poor travelers from far away and convinced Israel to make a covenant with them.

In regards to your flesh, you may say that this aspect or that feature is not so bad. You consider it to be useful for the Lord. Perhaps you are naturally a great speaker. Once you used your speaking for yourself, now you will use it for the Lord. Whether your natural speaking is for yourself or for the Lord it doesn’t matter. What matters is the source. The source of your speaking is the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Only if your strong speaking is crucified, can it be useful to the Lord in resurrection. Then God will be the Source of your speaking. Then whether you speak clearly or with stuttering, God’s Life will flow through your speaking because He is your Source.

If you embrace your natural strengths, you are just like Israel. You forget your Husband and go ahead to make a covenant with your flesh. We must always wait on our Husband. The River of Life flows from the Throne, the Lord’s Headship. Only when we are living practically under our Husband’s Headship, will we enjoy the Flow of His Life.

Not taking your own choice.

The Lord desired to give the Good Land to the tribes of Israel. But, two and a half tribes didn’t want to cross the Jordan. They wanted the land before the Jordan, because it was good for their livestock. God gave them their choice and because of their choice, they would be the first tribes attacked by invaders and they wouldn’t have the protection of the Jordan.

You must not take your own choice, dear children. You must wait on the Lord. You must drop your opinions. You must be One with God’s People. As long as there is no sin or idol, be One with God’s People. If the saints are loud, be loud with them. If the saints are quiet, be quiet with them. Drop the ordinances in your heart that cause enmity between you and the Body. Water baptism by immersion or sprinkling? In a pool or in a lake? Drop your opinion in such matters. Who cares if you are right? The Oneness of the Body is far more important. We must march as One together with the Lord.

Not giving up and settling for less than God’s desire.

If you go on reading the Scriptures, you will find that the Israelites never fully cut off their enemies. They became content with the little that they had gained and gave up the fighting. Thus, they suffered. They succumbed to idolatry, to sin, and to invasions by the enemy.

I do think that many of you are defeated and accept that defeat as “this is just the way it is”. You are just waiting for Jesus to return to make everything better. But that isn’t God’s Economy. There is a reason Jesus calls for Overcomers. There is a reason Jesus warns of unfaithful servants, of virgins without Oil. God’s Economy to fulfill His Eternal Purpose is to dispense Himself into us to be our Life and Life-supply, so that He saturates us and constitutes our entire being, starting with our spirit and working His way out to our mind, will, emotions, and someday to our resurrected Body. This is why we eat His flesh and drink His blood. You are what you eat. So keep eating God in Christ. It’s the eating that gives us Strength for working and for fighting.

You must not accept defeat. We fight by turning to the Lord and continually receiving Christ and all that He is for us by Faith. Are your tired? Christ is your Energy. Are you hungry? Christ is your great Feast. The same Power that resurrected and ascended a Man to be seated in the heavenlies at the right hand of God, is now in us. This same Power is flowing towards us who believe!

All of the difficulties, the trials, the drynesses, are for our growth. If we will persevere in pursuing the Lord and enjoying Him day-by-day we will grow. It’s through the dry times that the roots of the trees dig deeper searching for Water. Dig deeper into our Lord. He is perfecting us. Keep turning to Him, loving Him, enjoying Him, all the time, and you won’t be disappointed. You will have the growth in Life and when the Lord appears in glory, so will you. What has been wrought in you in secret, will be manifested outwardly in great glory.

Like this:

In God’s eyes, there have only been two Men in all of history: Adam and Christ. When Adam ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, we all ate. When Adam was poisoned by the Serpent, we were all poisoned. When Adam died, we all died. This is because we were in Adam.

If you don’t understand, let me give you an example. You were in your grandfather before you were born. If your grandfather died, then you would have died and would never have been born.

So, from our natural birth we have been dead, little vipers, spreading the Serpent’s poison. We were like zombies walking around consumed with the hunger of our flesh. Zombies eat brains and the cause of our condition is eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Zombies are governed by the lust of their flesh and just spread death wherever they go. When Adam ate from that Tree of Death, he became governed by his flesh.

God created man uniquely as body, soul, and spirit. This was so that man could be the invisible God’s physical expression. Man was created in such a way that He could be One with God. But man wasn’t created with the divine Life and the divine Nature. If Adam had eaten of the Tree of Life, God would have entered into Him to be His Life. God, who is Spirit would have entered into Adam’s spirit.

The human spirit was meant to be the dominant part of our being. But we were seduced by the Serpent and became spiritually dead. The flesh became the dominant part of our being to the point that God just called us flesh. Whether your natural self is good or bad, it doesn’t matter so much. Your natural source is a dead man, Adam.

So God came and was born as the Seed of the Woman. Jesus was not born of a man, but of a woman. Jesus lived as a perfect Man. Whenever the enemy came and called Him “Son of God”, Jesus replied “Son of Man”. He indeed is the Son of God, but He came to be the perfect Son of Man. He had the fine humanity expressing divinity. He lived a perfect human life, was crucified, died, resurrected, ascended, and seated at the hand of God. He remains a God Man in His ascension and will forever be a God Man. And you also, if you have believed into Christ, were in Him as He lived a perfect human life, died, resurrected, ascended, and seated at the right hand of God.

In Christ, who you were according to your natural birth is dead in God’s eyes. Christ is your Second Birth. Christ is your Life. Christ is your Nature. Christ is your New Man.

Jesus Christ, the Last Adam, became a Life-giving Spirit to enter into us. So that the Spirit, who is mingled with our spirit, is not just the Spirit of God, but also the Spirit of the Man Jesus. The application and the effectiveness of Jesus’ perfect humanity, His death, His resurrection, His ascension, and His sitting down at the right of God…it’s all in this Spirit…and this Spirit is in us!

But don’t think that the flesh is completely gone yet. God is still bringing us forward into the experience of the Reality of Jesus’ finished work. It still remains with us because it is profitable for us. It drives us to pursue God and rely on Him. It is the manure, the compost, that drives our growth. Without the compost, plants can grow, but not so swiftly. The dead and decaying compost enriches their growth in Life.

But don’t walk by the flesh, walk by the Spirit. Adam is no longer your source, Christ is your Source. You have a new Father. You have been born of God! You are a son of God, sharing in the Sonship.

Disown your old self, the person you are by natural birth. That person, good or bad, was crucified in Christ. You have a New Man, which is Christ Himself. He was been born into you as the Seed. Within a seed, there is the entire tree. In the same way Christ enters into us in a small way, but this is the entire Christ, lacking nothing.

Whether you succeed or fail, you must disown that old man. Declare that that person is not you. He is dead and buried. You are in Christ. It is good to declare, dear saints. Declare words of Faith out loud or in secret. Turn off the radio on your way to work and turn your heart to the Lord Spirit within you, and declare who you are in Christ. Declare all that He is for you and all that He has done for you. Declare your Love for Him. Declare that you have no Love of your own, but God in Christ is your Love and you are returning His Love back to Him.

This is some practical help to bring you into the experience of Christ as your death and Christ as your Resurrection Life. Don’t be dismayed if you take by Faith that your old man is dead and then you find yourself even more in the flesh. This is the enemy’s scheme. The enemy would cut off your Faith quickly. The enemy wants to cut off your Hope in Christ. But you must press on! You are not able, but Christ is. He is your Power. The same Power that raised Him from the dead and seated Him at the right hand of God is in you. This Power is towards us who believe. It is more powerful than any nuclear bomb.

Keep turning to your spirit, enjoying and experiencing Christ, and your inner man will be strengthened.

Advertisements

Share this:

Like this:

I hope that you will learn more from this post, than just about Jericho. I hope that you will see how to read the Old Testament, not just as a dead historical book, but as a Map to see and experience Christ.

Jericho is a picture of the flesh, with its high walls, separating us from the Lord.

There are two aspects in the story of Jericho. There is the march outside and Rehab within.

We can’t emphasize enough that the battle is the Lord’s. But we do have a part in it. Let’s take a look at the Lord’s People in the battle.

Israel marched quietly around the city with the Ark. The Ark was God being carried by Man and this was a type of Christ. This march around the City, was for exalting Christ.

The march was an orderly and corporate one, meaning that we must walk together, but not in a chaotic or loose way. We are walking together as the Body with our eyes set on the Lord.

We may be the armed men, marching with our Lord, but the Lord doesn’t want anything of our natural strength. The march was a quiet one, because we must quiet ourselves. This is the quieting of our souls: our mind, will, and emotions. These must be quieted, so we can follow the Joshua within us: the Spirit.

The priests would blow the rams’ horns, as the armed men marched silently. Did you know that Jesus is the Ram of God? He came as the Lamb of God to be a sacrifice. He laid down His horns, because the horns represent the fighting power. But, in His resurrection and ascension, He has His horns again. The horns were blown, representing the proclamation of the Gospel. This Gospel is the fighting power of our Lord.

Don’t be deceived, dear ones, the Gospel is not just for the unbelievers, but for the believers as well. We need to proclaim the Gospel to ourselves and to each other, everyday. We need to keep hearing the Reality of Christ. We must Hear Him as the Word and received Him day-by-day, as our Food, our Life-supply. Otherwise, we will be distracted and overcome by the world.

Israel walked around 7 times, because 7 consists of 3 and 4. 3 is the number of the Triune God and 4 is the number of the creature, because it is 3 + something added. Remember, God worked for 6 days and Man’s first day was a day of Rest. Around this city of Jericho, God and Man walked in Oneness.

Can you see the picture yet?

We must quiet our natural selves and walk together with God in Oneness, exalting Christ and proclaiming all that He is and all that He has done.

But, there is more.

We can’t forget about Rahab. Rahab was a harlot who lived in Jericho. She was altogether one with Jericho. Don’t you know that we are all Rahabs? We were the ones fully in our flesh. We were the harlots, or unfaithful ones, giving ourselves to the world.

We know that God has condemned sin in the flesh and the fallen flesh must be fully consumed, as shown in the burnt offering. But, thanks to God, in Christ, we are not consumed. We have the blood!

Rahab recognized the beautiful feet of the messengers, and believed in the Lord. Just as the Israelites put the blood on the doorpost in Egypt, Rahab tied the scarlet thread in the window. Because of Rahab’s faith, she is counted in the genealogy of Jesus. May we all be ones who have a part in bringing forth Christ!

Dear saints, as Rahab, within the flesh, there is nothing we need(or can) do…but rely on Christ’s finish work. As the members of the New Man, no longer governed by the flesh, we do have a part as the coworkers of the Lord

He is bringing us into the experience of all that He has already done. He is making the objective work of Christ, subjective in us. Praise the Lord, we are in Christ!

Share this:

Like this:

So also it is written, “The first man , Adam, became a living soul .” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. [1 Corinthians 15:45 NASB]

The last Adam is not a reference to God, but to a Man.

Jesus Christ, or Jesus the Anointed, became the Life-giving Spirit in His ascension. In His ascension, He remains as both God and Man.
This isn’t to say that Jesus isn’t seated in the heavenlies. But this Christ is so wonderful that He is at the right hand of God and He is in us.

“Take also for yourself the finest of spices: of flowing myrrh five hundred shekels, and of fragrant cinnamon half as much, two hundred and fifty, and of fragrant cane two hundred and fifty, and of cassia five hundred, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, and of olive oil a hin. You shall make of these a holy anointing oil, a perfume mixture, the work of a perfumer; it shall be a holy anointing oil. With it you shall anoint the tent of meeting and the ark of the testimony, and the table and all its utensils, and the lampstand and its utensils, and the altar of incense, and the altar of burnt offering and all its utensils, and the laver and its stand. You shall also consecrate them, that they may be most holy; whatever touches them shall be holy. You shall anoint Aaron and his sons, and consecrate them, that they may minister as priests to Me. You shall speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘This shall be a holy anointing oil to Me throughout your generations. [Exodus 30:23-31 NASB]

The anointing oil isn’t just the Spirit of God that we see in Genesis 1, but it is God, who has gone through a process. In the oil, signifying the Spirit of God, there are spices added. The spices signify the death and resurrection of Jesus and the effectiveness of that death and resurrection. Jesus Christ offered Himself through the eternal Spirit. This Spirit is Christ in us.

This Spirit within us is both the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Man. If you have believed into Christ Jesus, your spirit is One with Him.

Oh Lord how sweet You are as the Spirit within us. How all-inclusive you are for us. You are fully God and fully Man for us.

Even more, Jesus said that He and the Father are One. He said that He is in the Father and the Father is in Him. Do you realize that that means that we are in the Father and the Father is in us? Although God is Father, Spirit, and Son, these Members are distinct, but never separate.

We are in God and God is in us!

Dear holy ones of God, you already have this Anointing. Have you experienced Him? Have you taken Him as your Anointing by Faith? He is sufficient for you.

Enjoying and experiencing Christ doesn’t require a special feeling. It’s taking Him as everything that you need. Are you unloving? Take Christ as your Love. Are you impatient? Take Christ as your Patience.

Let’s enjoy this Anointing together; He is our Oneness and He is our Life.

Behold, how good and how pleasant it is For brothers to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious oil upon the head, Coming down upon the beard, Even Aaron’s beard, Coming down upon the edge of his robes. It is like the dew of Hermon Coming down upon the mountains of Zion; For there the Lord commanded the blessing-life forever. [Psalms 133:1-3 NASB]

Advertisements

Share this:

Like this:

A brother, David Bolton, invited me to join in with him and another sister, Preeti Rachel Rajkumar, to share Christ together through writing a blog post. I hope you enjoy Christ through each of our portions!

A collaborative post by Peter Ski, Preeti Rachel Rajkumar, and David Bolton
for “The WORD in 3D” initiative.

~ ~ ~

“I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to Him. But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.”2 Corinthians 11:2-3

Peter says:

Have you lost the simplicity and purity in Christ? Has your relationship with Christ become complex? Can you quiet yourself and enjoy Christ within you? Can you just turn your heart to Him and love Him, with the Love that He has showered you with?

Share this:

Like this:

And I will put enmity between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.” [Gen 3:15 NASB]

When they brought these kings out to Joshua, Joshua called for all the men of Israel, and said to the chiefs of the men of war who had gone with him, “Come near, put your feet on the necks of these kings.” So they came near and put their feet on their necks. Joshua then said to them, “Do not fear or be dismayed! Be strong and courageous, for thus the LORD will do to all your enemies with whom you fight.” So afterward Joshua struck them and put them to death, and he hanged them on five trees; and they hung on the trees until evening. [Jos 10:24-26 NASB]

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us–for it is written, “CURSED IS EVERYONE WHO HANGS ON A TREE”– [Gal 3:13 NASB]

Beloved saints, there is so much in the above verses. I just want to touch on a little of Christ in these scriptures.

We know that the Seed in Genesis refers to Jesus Christ. In Christ, our flesh has been crucified and the serpent has been crucified. But Joshua is about our experience of taking Christ as our Good Land, God’s provision for our every need. In Joshua there are peoples that represent the fallen flesh and their king’s represent the serpentine powers that dominate our flesh.

In Joshua, we see Joshua(Spirit) leading us and calling us to put to death the flesh(Canaanites) and the powers(Kings). We are to join with Him in overcoming the enemy and putting him under our feet.

We don’t do this by following outward laws and rules and regulations. We follow a Lord within us! We follow the Law of the Spirit of Life. He is leading us inwardly to overcome our flesh. This is the application of all that He accomplished on the cross. What was objective to us, is becoming experiential as we follow our Lord inwardly.

As we turn to the Lord and enjoy Him, we are experiencing Him and His shining is overcoming all of the darkness within us. But, we must turn away from all of the distractions that draw our flesh, that entice our minds and emotions; we must turn to the spiritual Life within us. As we do this we our gaining Him and He is gaining us, for our mutual enjoyment.

Advertisements

Share this:

Like this:

“But to this day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their heart; but whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.” [2Cr 3:15-18 NASB]

Day-by-day, moment-by-moment, we must turn our hearts to the Lord. This is God’s Way to save us, to transform us, to unite us with Himself in perfect Oneness.

To turn to the Lord is to set your mind on your spirit, which is united with God’s Spirit. Your spirit is the Holy of Holies; it’s the mount of transfiguration.

When you turn your mind to your spirit, it’s like sitting down in a chair. Before, you were walking in the world, but now you have overcome the obstacles that satan has put in the way of this Chair. With your will, you have turned your mind to the spirit, and you may have some enjoyment in your emotions. This is your place of Rest. Don’t be so caught up in the things of this world, that you fail to enter into His Rest.

As we turn our hearts to the Lord, we are taking Him in; we are eating Him for His enjoyment and our enjoyment.

Turning to the Lord is the purpose of reading the scriptures, singing hymns, and listening to preaching. But even in your work you can turn to your spirit and enjoy Christ as the Life-giving Spirit, within you.

Encourage one another to turn away from the worldly things, to the Spirit.

Like this:

You may have noticed there has been a name change on this blog. So, on the new focus of Enjoying Christ, today’s post is on enjoying Christ through the Scriptures.

There are many ways that people read the Bible, but I want to share the best way that I have found. Your experience may differ :).

The most important thing is that you turn to the Lord Spirit in your spirit, when you read. It will only puff up your old man if you are reading with just your mind. I find it helpful to reject my own thoughts, silencing my inner self, and let the Lord know that I’m not here to gain more knowledge. I’m here to know Him…to experience Him…to enjoy Him…to gain Him.

When you are a new believer, it’s good to read a lot. It’s milk to the new believer and a child needs a lot of milk. By reading a lot, you may miss the details of the Painting, but you are able to see the entire Picture. The Old Testament is a living Picture of Christ and the New Testament is the explanation beneath the Picture.

As you grow, you need meat. You need to eat more slowly and chew more thoroughly. You should “chew the cud”. You may read the same chapter over and over again for a week. You may spend a month on a particular phrase. Read a chapter. Read a verse. Read a phrase. Read a word.It doesn’t matter so much, how much you read, because knowledge isn’t your goal. The intention of the Scriptures is to turn your heart to the Lord. The Scriptures become a springboard to enjoying Christ for our Father’s enjoyment.

Let me give you an example with Leviticus 14. Here is how I might read it with the Lord

“Then the LORD spoke(Lord you are the God who speaks) to Moses, saying, “This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing (I am just a dirty leper that needs to be cleansed). Now he shall be brought to the priest (You are my Priest, Jesus, and I am here before you), and the priest shall go out to the outside of the camp (Thank you for going outside the camp to heal me!). Thus the priest shall look, and if the infection of leprosy has been healed in the leper,” (I am in Christ and in your eyes I am clean and you have the true sight) [Lev 14:1-3 NASB]

After reading this with prayer, I may not have a need to read anymore, because I am in my spirit. Now, is the time to be quiet and just enjoy Him, inhaling Him and exhaling myself.

Share this:

Like this:

And Jesus said to His disciples, “Truly I say to you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 19:23 NASB

There are so many distractions from Christ available for us today. These distractions come in the form of social media, news, tv shows, video games, hobbies, politics, and so much more.

This isn’t a post about whether these things are good or bad. These things fill up our minds and prevent us from turning to our spirit.

You may spend your day off playing video games and watching tv, but when you go to pray, it’s very difficult to turn to your spirit. Instead of being filled with God, you have become filled with so many other things.

With a day of video games, you may have difficulty enjoying Christ, in a deep way, for a week. Every time you attempt to deny your soul life, and turn inwardly, your mind runs wild. All of a sudden, your mind is back on the video game. You reject those thoughts, silencing yourself before the Lord, and suddenly your mind is on your favorite tv show.

After drinking so much salt water, you have been dying of thirst, and are so parched, that you can only take sips of the Living Water. The more time that you give to so many occupying things, the more difficult it is to enter into the kingdom of heaven, which is within you.

Don’t let things occupy you. You must reign over the things by Christ, rather than allowing the things to control you.

Advertisements

Share this:

Like this:

Perhaps, you are reading this post because you are concerned how Jesus uncharacteristically made a whip and drove the merchants out of the temple. If that is the case, I want you to see this story in new light. You are missing much in the gospels if you just read them plainly. The gospels are story books. This is one of the pictures from those story books.

We can’t take this picture and apply whatever interpretation that we desire. But, we must turn to our spirit and interpret this according to all of the scriptures.

I don’t want to just tell you what this is a picture of, I want you to see a whole new way of reading the scriptures! So Let’s take a look at the main features of this picture.

We have Christ in the temple, full of zeal for His Father’s house, driving out merchants.

If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.

to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

We are the Temple of God. This is a picture of Christ within us, as the Spirit, zealously cleansing us.

But, who are the merchants? Canaanites mean merchants. Jesus driving out the merchants out of the temple, is the same as the Israelites driving the Canaanites out of the good land.

So, what is our God so zealous to cleanse us of? The flesh.

And the LORD said, My Spirit will not strive with man forever, for he indeed is flesh; so his days will be cone hundred twenty years.

For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.

Dear saints, your Old Man has been crucified in Christ and you are no longer a slave to the flesh. You must crucify the flesh by the finished work of Christ. The very Spirit within you is the Reality and Effectiveness of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The flesh is crucified by your Faith in this One within you. Everything that is not Spirit, is flesh.

Hallelujah! As much as we hate this flesh, our Lord hates it so much more and He is filled with zeal to cleanse His House. Deny your old self, pick up the cross, and follow our Lord, who is within you.

Like this:

God gave the Law to the Israelites, but He dealt with them according to the Tabernacle. If He dealt with them according to the Law, they should have died. But, He dealt with them according to the Tabernacle, so that there would be atonement for their sins. Paul even points out that the Law was just something temporary. It was never God’s desire to give us the Law. But, God did desire to Tabernacle among us. There is so much depth to the Tabernacle. Every detail described from Ex 25-31 is a revelation, but that could take an entire book .

Mainly it reveals God’s desire to dwell on earth among His People. John reveals to us that Jesus tabernacled among us. The Tabernacle is a shadow of Jesus. It’s not just a picture of Jesus, but also of us.

The Tabernacle is a picture of the New Creation. At the front of the Tabernacle was the altar, which represented the cross. The cross is the way in the New Creation.

The Outer Court is the body. It’s visible to all. The Holy Place is the soul, or mind, will, and emotions. It’s not visible to all. Only a select few can gain access to a person’s soul. The Most Holy Place is the spirit, where God dwells. It’s where we enjoy God and our senses are useless there. We must enter into our Holy of Holies to worship in Spirit and Reality.

The soul is the person, the connection between spirit and body. This was also displayed in the Garden of Eden, where we are set before the Tree of Life(spirit) and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil(flesh). We are always eating from one of these Trees. Every time we turn to our spirit, we are enjoying Christ, the true Vine Tree of Life. We have even been grafted onto this Tree of Life and made a part of Him, as His branches, living by His Life Sap and producing His Fruit.

Since the veil was torn, in the flesh of Jesus, we may now turn to the Lord Spirit in our spirits and be transformed into the same Image as Him, who is the Image of the invisible God, from glory to glory.

Share this:

Like this:

I’m not qualified to teach this, but I will share what I have experienced. To deny the soul-life is to deny you mind, will, and emotions.

Rather than coming to God to pray will so many thoughts and desires, we first must come to Him with our soul quiet. We must quiet ourselves and just focus ourselves on God within us. When our mind wants to follow rabbit trails and think about other things, it must be pulled back to the place of rest in the spirit. When we are so worried and anxious about things, we must turn to God within us and rest. We can certainly pray about things and people, but we must first quiet our souls, so that our prayers will be that of our spirit. The more we turn to the spirit, the more natural it will be as the spirit gains dominance over our soul.

These are times of sowing in the spirit, so that we may reap in the spirit. Another analogy is that we are eating the healthy food, God. When we eat, we are taking the life of something else into us and assimilating that life.

Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.

Share this:

Like this:

I thought that some of you might find some encouragement in this today. We all suffer from a multitude of temptations and many have not found the Way to overcome.

It’s been my experience that the majority of saints don’t believe this encouragement from our brother, Peter, who saw, heard, and touched our Lord:

…the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation…

In this short part of his sentence, Peter shares with us the way to overcome: by faith in our Lord. Not just faith in the Lord, who is far away in a place called heaven, overseeing our lives. But, faith in the Lord who indwells us. Faith in the Lord who is united with us at the very core of our being; who became the Life-giving Spirit to unite Himself with our spirit in eternal oneness.

Christ in us is our Hope of Glory; our Hope of just expressing Christ and nothing of ourselves.

Don’t be discouraged if immediately after reading this, you sin. The enemy will do everything that he can to keep you from walking by faith. Even in the midst of falling into temptation, you can turn to the Lord by faith, and say “I can’t rescue myself from temptation, but I know that You are my Rescuer”. You may fail a thousand times, but don’t lose faith in Christ as the Way. Christ is the unique Overcomer, and He will overcome within us.

Even if you need faith, you can turn to Him and receive Christ as your Faith. In Christ, we can enjoy His unsearchable riches, which He is dispensing into us by His superabundant Spirit. We just keep receiving Him into our souls by faith.

In the ark, built by Noah, there was only a single window. This window was on the roof. We receive light through windows. The window was on the roof of the ark, because our Light is from above. Christ is the Window, and we receive God’s shining through Him. Christ is even the very Effulgence of God that we receive.

Christ isn’t just the Light and the Window, but He is also the Window Screen. The windows that Ezekiel saw, in his vision of the temple, had lattices, or screens. Christ, our Window Screen, keeps all of the dirt and bugs out. Christ keeps the world and the evil spirits out of His House.

Windows aren’t just for light, but also for air. Christ has become our Air, as the Life-giving Spirit, so that we may breath all the negative things out and breath in God. As we look upon Christ, we receive Him as our Light and our Air.

Keep the eyes of your heart on Christ. When you look at something, it enters into you through your eyes and is translated into your mind. It’s the same in Christ. Keep your eyes on Christ and He enters into you. Day-by-day, we receive Him, as our Grace, by Faith. Faith is our spiritual sight. We walk by Faith, not by sight. Christ is even Faith, for us. When we receive Him, by Faith, He is the shining Light within us. As we are filled and saturated with Him, He overflows out of us as Love. This expression of God is His Glory, and we join in His Glory, which is just Christ.

Brothers and sisters, whenever you see a window, remember that that window is a shadow of Jesus Christ. Through Christ, we receive the Light of God and through Christ, all the dirty, evil things are kept out.

Share this:

Like this:

On the next day, as they were on their way and approaching the city, Peter went up on the housetop about the sixth hour to pray. But he became hungry and was desiring to eat; but while they were making preparations, he fell into a trance; and he saw the sky opened up, and an object like a great sheet coming down, lowered by four corners to the ground, and there were in it all kinds of four-footed animals and crawling creatures of the earth and birds of the air. A voice came to him, “Get up, Peter, kill and eat!” But Peter said, “By no means, Lord, for I have never eaten anything unholy and unclean.” Again a voice came to him a second time, “What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy.” This happened three times, and immediately the object was taken up into the sky. – [Act 10:9-16 NASB]

And he said to them, “You yourselves know how unlawful it is for a man who is a Jew to associate with a foreigner or to visit him; and yet God has shown me that I should not call any man unholy or unclean. – [Act 10:28 NASB]

If you are looking forward to the Christ, the Reality series, don’t worry, I am still writing it. I have the second post partially written and I think that you will enjoy it. But, the above Scripture is what’s on my heart tonight. I came across these verses as the saints read them together. I have read them before, but I never saw what I am sharing with you today.

Everyone knows what has been called “the great commission”, but who ever even mentions the above commandment, given to Peter? The matter of eating and drinking Christ has always been a difficult thing(even for the believers) ever since Jesus said it, so long ago. But, here, our Lord gives us an even more difficult commandment. When preaching Christ, does anyone have the thought of going out to kill and eat people?

This vision, and our Lord’s words, reveal a wonderful key to understanding the Scriptures. All of the unclean creatures represented the Gentiles. The Jews were not to eat the Gentiles.

So, what does eating mean? It is the deepest union that two beings can have. What you eat becomes part of you. Something dies and enters into you and its life becomes your life. In cultures where very fragrant food is eaten, we find that people even smell like the food that they eat. If all you eat is fish every day, you will have a fishy fragrance.

God became a Man and died, so that He could enter into us as our Food and Drink. Thus, filling and saturating us, with Himself. He died to become our Life and Life-supply.

On the other hand, in His words to Peter, we find that He kills us and eats us. We cannot eat Him until He has eaten us. When the Spirit comes, He brings the death and the effectiveness of the death of Jesus Christ into us. We are crucified in Christ and we become food to satisfy Him. He eats us and we enter into Him and become part of Him; we become part of His Body. But, He doesn’t eat us directly. He eats us through His Body. The Ekklesia, the enlargement of Christ, goes into every place, killing and eating those, whom God has called.

Dear saints, we must eat and drink Christ, who was killed to become our Food and Drink. When we are filled with Christ, we can go, kill and eat those whom God has chosen for Himself. He is hungry and thirsty, and we are a satisfying Feast for Him, just as He is a satisfying Feast for us. This is the Way of union with God.

Like this:

Let’s face it. The Bible is often viewed as a disjointed array of stories, events, laws, propositions, truths, ethical statements, and moral lessons. But as we will demonstrate in this book, the sixty-six books of the Bible are woven together by a single storyline. One of the best ways to look at the twenty-seven books of the New Testament may be to see them as a commentary on the Old Testament. The entire Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, are unified by a common narrative. And once our eyes are opened to see that narrative, everything in both Testaments gels into a coherent, understandable, and amazing story. And what is that story? Well, it’s not enough to call it “salvation history” as many people do. No. It’s the story of Jesus Christ. The end product of biblical Christianity is a person— not a book, not a building, not a set of principles or a system of ethics— but one person in two natures (divine/ human) with four ministries (prophet/ priest/ king/ sage) and four biographies (the Gospels). But those four biographies don’t tell the whole story. Every bit of Scripture is part of the same great story of that one person and that one story’s plotline of creation, revelation, redemption, and consummation.

Jesus: A Theography, by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola, is quite a book at 409 pages. A significant number of those pages consists of footnotes for each chapter. This immense “theography” of Jesus covers Christ, from eternity past to His second coming (and everything in between). It’s not only an objective study of Christ, but also very practical at times.

Honestly, Jesus: A Theography is a difficult book to review. I found some parts of the book very enjoyable, but other parts somewhat tedious. There are different perspectives taken throughout the book and I think that this ensures that every reader will find some enjoyment of Christ within its pages.

If you enjoy reading the Scriptures, there are references. If you enjoy types and symbols, these are considered. If you enjoy a historical view, historical aspects are presented. Plus, I think you will find much, much more. But, you can find all of these things in many books.

What makes Jesus: A Theography unique, is that it’s entirely focused on Christ. Not only Jesus of Nazareth, but the eternal Christ Jesus. Our Lord Jesus is so lovely, so vast, and so all-inclusive, there is no single book that can fully express Him. But, Jesus: A Theography gives us a wonderful view of Him, and it is rooted in the Scriptures.

I recommend this book to all saints, who desire to know our Lord more deeply.

Although, I received this book for free from Booksneeze, but I also purchased an electronic version, so that I could read the footnotes more easily, and so that I could share it.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with theFederal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

I have decided to write a new series on Christ as the Reality of every good thing. I will present pictures of Christ from our everyday life. Since, all things were created by Him, through Him, and for Him, His imprint is everywhere. If something does not express Him in some way, it expresses His enemy, or lack of Christ. I have learned to see Christ in everything from others. I hope that by seeing some of these analogies and pictures, that you will be encouraged to see Christ wherever you go. Our Lord is infinitely vast and you may be surprised where you will find His shadow!

I am the Way, the Reality, and the Life

Christ is the real Onion, and His layers are infinite and unsearchable. Whenever you are no longer enjoying the freshness of one layer, there is always another layer of freshness available for your enjoyment.

That means He’s repugnant to Satan. Because He’s full of freshness and life and an aroma that we love. Let’s all eat Him as the real onion. – Marcus Leslie